Epiphany and Catharsis

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In 2010, I was asked to compose a piece for Troy University (Troy, Alabama) by someone I had never met named Diane Orlofsky. She was wonderfully kind and was very particular about the text she would like set for her choir. The piece ended up being a mystical acapella setting with excerpts taken from St. Augustine of Hippo’s (354-386) 10th book of Confessions. I enjoyed writing it and was granted the honor of joining them near the conclusion of their rehearsal process. It wasn’t particularly easy, but Diane and her choir were doing a marvelous job bringing it to life. Beyond our musical time together though, I was struck by something more in the atmosphere of the room and in Diane’s spirit — something that is hard to define, but deeply moving and powerful.

It is interesting to note that at the time, while living in Seattle, I was in a rather challenging period of life. One morning I popped into Capital Hill’s Elliot Bay Bookstore, as I did often during my time there, and happened upon Wendell Berry’s 2005 collection of poetry entitled Given. One particular poem struck me in a way that nearly no poem had before. It spoke into my darkness at the time. The miraculous truth of the words were as searing as the lighted sun it describes:

We travelers, walking to the sun, can’t see
Ahead, but looking back the very light
That blinded us shows us the way we came,
Along which blessings now appear, risen
As if from sightlessness to sight, and we,
By blessing brightly lit, keep going toward
That blessed light that yet to us is dark.
— Wendell Berry, from Given

What transcendent truth this is to know that walking toward the Light will most assuredly blind you and you must rely on faith alone to guide your steps! What further and deeper truth it is that only when looking back will you see the blessings (lit by the very light you are walking towards) that have girded your heart and the joys that have sustained your spirit during pain, tribulation, or peace. It is the unfortunate nature of man to find it difficult to simply be present or to “see” what should be seen, presently. We are, in many cases, blind. But Berry suggests here, that in reflection (looking back), one can see blessing and gain some courage to turn once again to the blinding Light that we can’t understand or fully know and press forward… ever forward.

These words were still brewing deep in my mind when I boarded the plane to Alabama that year. While I was there, I remember sharing not only what I was currently going through in my life but also this poem with Diane during our time together. It struck her in a similar way: like a bell, clear and bright on a distant hill. And like a bell ringing, there was something that rang about those few days (and the students that were there I think could attest). These times cannot be fabricated or chanced, only walked into and enjoyed. There became an ‘agreement,’ by those present, upon many things: the richness of faith, meaning, sacrifice and service, excellence, and deep joy. It was a profoundly encouraging time for me… and I hope for them as well.

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2016.

I received communication from Diane that she would like to collaborate on a new work for Troy’s Concert Chorale in honor of the 10th year, to be premiered in April of 2017. I felt very honored and joyful to be asked. My mind went immediately back to that Berry poem from 7 years ago. What strange fulfillment it would be to compose a piece that, in looking back, would be the “the very light that blinded us shows us the way we came, along which blessings now appear, risen as if from sightlessness to sight…” That became what I wanted for Diane, her students, and the alumni that sung with her at Troy over the last decade.

I chose not to pursue the Berry text as my textual foundation, so finding a perfect lyric for this moment was as challenging as it always is. I found two or three that touched the ideas of reflection and looking back, but I struggled and strained. One poem eventually leaped off the page to the forefront: Ridgely Torrence’s “Evensong.” What I didn’t see, at the beginning, was how layered, rich and unfathomably deep this poem was. Composing music to it helped me to eventually see.

Sometimes poems absolutely burn like a torch.

Beauty calls and gives no warning,
Shadows rise and wander on the day.
In the twilight, in the quiet evening,
We shall rise and smile and go away.
Over the flaming leaves
Freezes the sky.
It is the season grieves,
Not you, not I.
All our spring-times, all our summers,
We have kept the longing warm within.
Now we leave the after-comers
To attain the dreams we did not win.
O we have wakened, Sweet, and had our birth,
And that’s the end of earth;
And we have toiled and smiled and kept the light,
And that’s the end of night.
— Ridgely Torrence

After agreement from Diane on this text, I went forth to write a meaningful mixed acapella work. Not too long into the process, she approached me with an interesting and enriching development: that this piece be composed not only for choir, but also for violoncello to be played by her excellent colleague Katerina Juraskova. If I was apprehensive about it at first, it was not long before I knew that the addition of the cello would elevate this piece and poem to a more emotionally ‘charged’ place. It would, fundamentally, become the tone-setter and dance partner to the choral instrument, sometimes pulling, sometimes gliding along while holding the hand of a transporting choir.

“Evensong,” when all is said and done, is true reflection. It is seeing the past, as if rising from sightlessness to sight. This is something I know quite well and realized long ago that when reflecting like that yes you see blessings, but you also see or remember many painful things. We all refer to this simply as ‘life.’ I personally think that this ‘life’ is beautiful. This beauty contains ugliness (pain, turmoil, tragedy, injustice). It must, actually, because we are human. …because we are broken. I don’t find that this presence of “ugliness” necessarily eradicates beauty in the same fashion that light eradicates darkness, for example. I find it to broaden the idea of beauty — strengthens it, making it more complex (and probably more trustworthy). I tried to encapsulate a bit of that prismatic concept in the “beauty calling” opening cello line and initial text the choir sings.

The second half of Torrence’s poem is just unbelievable in what is nearly conversion language. “O we have wakened, Sweet, and had our birth, And that’s the end of earth;” is stunning to say the least and pregnant with meaning. There is a “big T-Truth” here to be seen, to be found — to be encountered. In some ways the profundity of it is such that I dare not begin to speak to it, because I will ruin it’s crystalline beauty somehow. It is followed immediately by “And we have toiled and smiled and kept the light, And that’s the end of night,” which is a remarkable hope-filled conclusion, no less filled with a knowing of this Truth mingled with the human condition.

Ultimately, I wanted this piece to honor what Diane and her singers have accomplished and experienced these last ten years. I have seen first-hand the effect that a choral conductor can have on their singers when they, year after year, love them deeply. It is life-altering, life-deepening, life-enriching. It becomes legacy. Ironically (in a similar fashion to the Berry poem), it is difficult to see this alteration, deepening, and enriching while in the moment. Only when looking back upon the time will you see fully (or even partially) the love bestowed, grace granted, or labor done. Those who love deeply ones in their care have indeed toiled and smiled and kept the light. Through all spring-times and all summers, they have kept the longing deep within and what one will hope is that very light blaze forth like a fire into the darkness of our time, into the darkness of the hearts around us, even our own.

How does one speak to ten years? How many faces seen, how many voices heard, how many hearts beating? Ten years of joy, pain, laughter, smiles, disaster, and triumph. Ten years of relationships, some but a breath, some rich and lasting. Ten years of memories, some held on to by thread, some seared deep or scarred.

Ten years of singing.

Beauty continues to call us all without warning. …And Troy University, with Diane Orlofsky will —
By blessing brightly lit, keep going toward
That blessed light that yet to us is dark.